“Amy,” she said, “out of the love you bear me—”

Which is small, I thought.

“I would beg a small favour from you.” Anna stopped. Mother was staring at her fixedly. I tried not to appear too impatient.

“As you know, my husband Antony Huddleston is not in favour with the King,” Anna blurted out. Colour had come into her face now, the red of anger and embarrassment at having to ask for goodwill from the little sister she had once patronised. “It is to our eternal grief that he is overlooked, for he could offer great service to the crown.”

I did not know Antony Huddleston well. He had a manor house at Sawston in Cambridgeshire and before Robert had sued for my hand in marriage he had seemed a good enough catch for Anna, the modestly dowried stepdaughter of a knight. I wondered if she ever wished I had wed first so that she could have gone to court and found herself a lord.

“Antony’s Catholic sympathies make that impossible,” I said coldly. “Surely you understand that? The King is not sympathetic towards papists.”

Anna cast her eyes down. “Antony has recanted,” she said. “He realises that the path he chose was the wrong one. I have helped him to see—”

“That Robert’s position could gain him preferment,” I finished for her, “as it has for our brothers.”

“Amy!” Mother exclaimed. “Shame on you for playing out your childhood grudges now. You are not yet too fine a lady to escape my censure.”

Now it was my turn to blush, with mortification. Mother was right to reprove me. It had been childish of me to take impulsive revenge and I was ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” I said reluctantly, “I’ll speak to Robert but I can promise nothing.”

Anna looked at me with her pale blue eyes. There was something disturbing in their very blankness. I knew then that she had hated asking me for anything and that having heard my response she hated me all the more. The air in the solar suddenly felt stiflingly humid, as though her dislike was a palpable thing, smothering me. I stood up abruptly.

“Let us walk,” I said. “We have no flower gardens here but the herb beds are pretty at this time of year.”

Mother was all eagerness, shepherding Anna out ahead of her, chattering about the demands of running a household. There was little I could contribute to the conversation; I had always intended to take up the reins of household management but I had servants to organise everything for me now and whenever I told Robert I felt I should do more, he just laughed indulgently. “Why would you wish to dirty your hands in the pantry or make tinctures in the still room?” he would say. “You are a fine lady now.”

I might have said that I wished it because I was bored, because I wanted to have a purpose and to be more than merely Mistress Dudley but I never did. How could I complain of my lot when so much good fortune was mine? Besides, things would be different when I had a child.